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Kathuria Public Schools & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.

Interlocutory Application · Neutral citation not assigned (Interlocutory Application Nos. 4-7 of 2015 in Civil Appeal No. 9220 of 2014)Decided 19 Feb 2016
Interlocutory Application Nos. 4-7 of 2015 in Civil Appeal No. 9220 of 2014
Justice Anil R. Dave · Justice Shiva Kirti Singh · Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel

Background

A school's land in Delhi had been under a decades-long land acquisition dispute, with the main civil appeal over the acquisition's validity already disposed of in September 2014 once possession of the land was found to have been handed over to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), with a court-appointed supervisor running the school in the interim. Several applications remained pending after that disposal: the school sought more time to keep running under the existing arrangement, the Delhi Government sought a direction to take over the school building to run it as a government school, and the school separately sought exclusion of a specific 9-bigha parcel from the handover.

Decision Breakdown

The Court found that possession of the entire land, including the school building, had already validly passed to the DDA as of 30 April 2013, with nothing excluded, and that the only outstanding step was an orderly administrative handover from the court-appointed administrator to the Delhi Government so the school could resume functioning as a government school. It accordingly disposed of the applications seeking an extension and directing handover, and dismissed the application seeking exclusion of the 9-bigha parcel as without merit.

Lesson Learnt

Once a court has finally determined that possession of acquired land has validly passed to the acquiring authority, later applications trying to carve out exceptions or delay the handover will not succeed unless they show a genuine, previously undecided entitlement: mere continued occupation does not create one.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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